Title	LIFE IS SIMPLE WITH INTERNET
Brand	TURK TELEKOM GROUP
Product/Service	LIFE IS SIMPLE WITH INTERNET
Category	A02. Corporate Responsibility
Entrant Company	TURK TELEKOM Istanbul, TURKEY
Advertising Agency	TURK TELEKOM Istanbul, TURKEY

The Campaign

Türk Telekom (TT) is one of the biggest integrated IT companies in the world and provides Internet connection to 98% of Turkish households. Next to efforts for universal access to ICTs for all, TT also focuses on social development. TT invests in building human capacities to reach an inclusive information society and thus developed a multi-stakeholder project: “Life is Simple with Internet”. Life is Simple with Internet is a social responsibility campaign, which is put into practice by Türk Telekom Group (TTG) in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program and Habitat Center for Development and Governance. The project is focused primarily on introducing women over 35 years of age living in under development cities with the digital world in order to enable their access to information and provides digital skills to use both public and private online services. The training curriculum of the project covers a number of topics including basic Internet and online communication usage, social media tools, internet security, e-government, e-health, e-municipality…. TT invests in building human capacities to reach an inclusive information society and thus developed a multi-stakeholder project. The project targets TTG’s potential customers and makes users out of those with no internet experience. This enables the project turn into a sustainable business model from the point of the company as well. The project differs from other CSR projects as it uses a sustainable business model instead of a one-time donation.

The Brief

After Turkish Statistical Institute’s “Information Society Statistics”, 2014 total internet usage in Turkey is 53.8%. Although Household with Access to the Internet is 60.2% in Turkey, 63.5% male users goes down to 44.1% for female users. There is a significant regional penetration gap due to the cultural, economical, educational inequalities. The project aims to provide digital skills to use both public and private online services and targets people with no access to the online world due to regional and economic inequalities. Along with promoting individual development, the project aims to increase individuals’ contribution to the society and economy.

Execution

The project is conducted in 28 cities of Turkey, chosen according to low internet and development rates. In January 2014, 9 young voluntary trainers were educated to be employed as main trainers in the project. They gave training to 123 youngsters from 28 cities, aged between 17 and 30. 2 local assistants coordinated this voluntary work. Following the aforementioned trainings, the volunteers started to organize their own local educations. The volunteers came together with municipalities, public education centers and youth centers to provide computer laboratories and internet connection capabilities. The curriculum covers basic internet usage, public&private e-services, online communication, online shopping, internet security and related topics.

Voluntary trainers started with trainings in March 2014. Following this,approximately 10.000 (9448) adults over 35 years of age received training, females accounting to 65% of them. In December 2017, 30.000 citizens will be educated and become internet literate. A group of women opened an Instagram account to display and sell their crafts. They started following other similar accounts to collaborate with them. A man in Mu?, producing “karakovan” honey has been been complaining about how the market wasn’t paying its worth. Then he learned about Facebook and then put his honey to online selling. In Cizre we had a group of disabled trainees who filed an online complaint to Kaymakamlik (sub-governor or a governor of a provincial district – P.E.) about disabled access to public buildings. Kaymakamlik accepted their request and all public building entrances in Cizre were redesigned to grant access to disabled citizens.

The Strategy

“Life is Simple with Internet” is a corporate reputation project, allowing people with no access to the online world to reach information Although technology access rate increases in Turkey, inequality regarding internet access and its usage continues due to various reasons. Access to and use of technologies remains extremely uneven. This is, in large part, a reflection of a deeper social, socio-economic& geographical inequality both between and within countries. In this context, parallel to TTG’s sustainability strategy, the project has been brought to being to provide equal opportunities in information access, thus challenging regional and economic inequalities.